At Independence Academy, students are finding some- thing that was lacking in their education – support and acceptance.

“We all have a common bond, no matter what we look like,” said Shannon Broderick, 17, of Abington.

A year after its January 2012 opening, Independence Academy has become a place where its 16 students – all pursuing a path to recovery from substance abuse – have found an educational home.

The high school, at 460 Belmont St., Brockton, serves students from all over southeastern Massachusetts.

Paul O’Brien, 17, of Brockton, attended Brockton High School and said how easy it was to get lost at the state’s largest high school. But at Independence, where O’Brien has spent about a year, he’s found the support system to help him face addiction while learning more about himself.

“Here you can really single out your problems and operate on them,” O’Brien said.

Independence Academy Principal Richard Melillo said the school staff has excelled at building relationships with students and getting them engaged.

“They feel connected to adults, which is a huge piece in our mission to build resiliency in these students,” Melillo said.

Over the next year, Melillo hopes to grow the enrollment and continue to increase engagement at the school.

But the state’s fourth recovery high school has to confront the challenges of getting the word out and finding an easier way to get students from across southeastern Massachusetts to the Brockton location.

Advisory board chairman Bill Carpenter, a Brockton School Committee member, said he feels good about how the school will do in 2013.

“We’ve got a great model but we also know we have to be willing to learn and respond and change and move as we go on,” Carpenter said.

The school was the result of two years of regional planning and advocacy to better serve a population decimated by a decade-long opiate epidemic that has claimed the lives of thousands of young people.

The epidemic, which hit suburbs hard, was extensively covered by The Enterprise in its award-winning Wasted Youth series. Many of the student-addicts used oxycodone drugs to get high. After they were hooked, many turned to the cheaper heroin, too often leading to fatal overdoses.

Independence Academy gets $10,128 per student out of Chapter 70 aid from the state, which comes to the school from the sending school district. It also has a five-year, $500,000 grant from the state Department of Public Health. It is run by the North River Collaborative.

Each student has a recovery plan and commits to its mission – living a life of non-violence, open communication, social responsibility and academics, emotional intelligence, recovery.

Bob Gallagher, the school’s recovery counselor and a licensed independent clinical social worker, meets daily with students, who all have Gallagher’s cell phone number.

Page 2 of 2 - “We’re a place where they can feel safe, where they can feel support, and where people get what they’re struggling with,” Gallagher said.

In its first year, the school graduated two students in May, started an after-school program to keep students focused on sobriety and unveiled a summer program that included students becoming certified rock climbers.

“Kids were showing up every day and that’s what we wanted to do – engage those students,” Melillo said.

The school also has a partnership with Massasoit Community College, allowing for dual enrollment, an important tool for helping the students catch up.

Melillo, the principal, and Carpenter, board chair, have been pleased with first-year successes, including hosting student-run Alcoholics Anonymous meetings twice a week and serving as the host of the family-support group Learn to Cope.

“We’ve got a great, well-established family support program that meets right here at the school every Monday night,” Carpenter said.